Over the past two months, the City of Ventura has experienced an increase in vehicle burglaries and
thefts from vehicles. The residential area of Portola Road and Thille Street has been particularly
impacted by these crimes. Over the past couple of months, detectives have been investigating the
trend, and beginning the first week of January, they developed suspect information specific to the
crimes in this area.

On 1/11/13 at 1200 hours, the suspects were contacted by detectives in the parking lot of 4200 E. Main
Street. At the time of the contact, they were attempting to sell stolen property that was taken from
a vehicle burglary in the aforementioned neighborhood. One of the suspects, Gilbert Villareal, was
immediately detained and found to be in possession of over $2,000 worth of stolen property. He was
taken into custody without incident. The second suspect, Jeremy Delgado, ran from detectives. As
the officers pursued after him, he dumped a bag he was carrying which contained a loaded, sawed off
shotgun. Detectives caught him in the 4400 block of Main Street, and he was taken into custody. Both
suspects are on probation for various drug and property crime related offenses, and they each have
ties to local gangs within the Ventura County area.

At the conclusion of the investigation, Villareal was booked into Ventura County Jail on the charges
of conspiracy to sell stolen property and two felony warrants. Delgado was booked on the charges
of conspiracy to sell stolen property, prohibited person in possession of a shotgun, possession of
an illegal length shotgun, felon in possession of ammunition, resisting arrest, possession of drug
paraphernalia and two felony warrants. No one was injured during this incident, and all of the recovered
stolen property was returned to the rightful owners. No additional items were recovered.

The investigation into this incident is ongoing. Anyone with information related to this incident
is urged to call the Ventura Police Department at 339-4493.